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THE PRICE OF BONES – MOVIE REVIEW

The Price of Bones is the latest short movie from Hollow Tree Films. The film is about a young woman named Caprice who is obsessed with being thin. She shares this obsession with her friend heather. They jog together and discuss new ways to stay thin while commiserating about their constant strife against gaining minute amounts of weight. There is also Caprice’s strained relationship with her mother and ever absent father.

There is a good amount of atmosphere and tension that builds throughout the film. Some of this tension comes from Caprice’s interactions with her mother around the diner table. Her mother takes care of her daughter by herself as her husband is always away at work. This leads Caprice’s mother to resent her daughter. This is most likely due to her own shortcomings in life. These interactions are interesting and tense, but as a whole they distract from the main story of a girl who is never satisfied with how she looks.

I found Caprice’s story to much more engaging than the other characters that are introduced. I wanted to know more about her struggle, and about why she wants so badly to disappear. If the filmmakers had focused solely on Caprice without any major side characters this would have been a much more disturbing film.

As it stands the film is technically sound as far as camera work, lighting, sound, editing, it’s performances. The writing is good but it really needed to be more focused on Caprice. I also believe the ending would have been much more impactful if Caprice and her friend Heather had switched places in the end sequence. I say this because Caprice is supposed to be obsessed with her own weight loss. Yes Caprice and heather are taking this journey to become thinner together, but Caprice is the main focus of the film and should stay that way throughout.

I did enjoy this film. So much so that it left me wanting more. It seemed to be working towards a payoff that we never quite reach. The final line of the film is chilling, but could have been more impactful if different choices were made with the story.

Overall I feel that Hollow Tree Films is going in the right direction by focusing on more personal character driven stories. Crossing small personal tales with big concepts will definitely lead to some truly great films from Hollow Tree Films. They are like the death head moth in Silence of the Lambs, and I can’t wait to see their transformation into something both beautiful and terrifying!